JJ,

The only point your original post made about spin avoidance
training was that the UK government required us to
do whereas in the land of the free etc you could do
what you damn well wanted. I pointed out that the government
did not require us to do anything, and the BGA (the
SSA equivalent) made those decisions in a fully deregulated
manner unlike you guys with the FAA all over you..
My original tetchy response was to a post that suggested
that we did not try and look objectively at every accident
and disseminate conclusions from that..

Now you've decided to address the substantive issue,
my view is as follows..

1. We do not 'routinely' spin students in during training.
Guess what, not all Puch spin accidents occurred during
instructor led spin exercises.

2. I've suggested there are some reservations about
the
specific use of the Puch amongst our instructor community


3. My understanding is that our accident rates overall
compare favourably with elsewhere in the world - this
was confirmed by our regional examiner at a CFI and
coach meeting on Saturday.

The problem with your analysis is that you focus on
accidents of commission, but not accidents of omission..
we don't know how many lives have been saved by spin
avoidance training, we do know how many have been lost.
What we do know is that the number of spin related
deaths has decreased. So I guess my answer is that
in my view the cure is better than the disease, although
we'd rather that noone died or was injured at any point
during their flying career..

In my opinion any comparison with the withdrawal of
spin training for US PPL's is invalid, power pilots
do not routinely fly at high angles of attack, and
tend not to use the rudder in most phases of flight.
They also tend not to make the number of outlandings
glider pilots do and tend not to have the same problems
to solve in the pattern..

I hope this answers your question on where I stand..

At 21:18 08 February 2004, Jj Sinclair wrote:
Mark,
We have had a pleasant little discussion of parachutes,
gun control and
socialized medicine, however you have failed to address
the core issue of the
British requirement to teach full blown spins. You
feel that those who survive
the spin training will be better for it. This position
fails to address the
fact that you Brits are screwing students and instructors
into the ground on a
fairly regular basis. Some of us feel your cure (spin
training) is worse than
the desease (spin accidents).
Your comments on the core issue?
JJ Sinclair